opensociety

I find business cases for data publishers much more compelling than examples of how open data can be used. For a start, I don’t think it’s possible to predict how open data will be used or what that will mean in terms of economic or societal impact: the wide world into which it’s released is just too complex to know.

One argument I’ve heard made about government open data is that releasing it can help organisations avoid the costs of Freedom of Information requests.

The reverse of cost avoidance is finding sponsors for open data publication.

"Big data is a topic of growing interest for many business and IT leaders, and there is little doubt that it creates business value by enabling organizations to uncover previously unseen patterns and develop sharper insights about their businesses and environments," David Newman, research vice president at Gartner, said in prepared remarks. "However, for clients seeking competitive advantage through direct interactions with customers, partners and suppliers, open data is the solution. For example, more government agencies are now opening their data to the public Web to improve transparency, and more commercial organizations are using open data to get closer to customers, share costs with partners and generate revenue by monetizing information assets.

The company's report noted that enterprise architects could play an important role in fostering information-sharing practices

Gartner suggested open data application programming interfaces (APIs) are a lightweight approach to data exchange. These APIs can be new sources of revenue, spur innovation, increase transparency and improve brand equity